Fountain (Fontaine)

Marcel Duchamp challenged traditional definitions of art with his controversial readymades, produced between 1913 and 1921. The readymades were mass-produced items, some slightly altered, that Duchamp presented as works of art. In 1964, Duchamp and his Milan dealer Arturo Schwarz produced a limited edition of replicas of the original readymades, most of which had been lost. The Eskenazi Museum of Art owns one of only three complete sets of the 1964 edition of eight (the others are at the National Gallery of Canada and the Israel Museum).

A urinal turned on its back and signed “R. Mutt, ” the original Fountain created a sensation when it was rejected from New York’s Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917.